Monday, May 31, 2010

I had a very productive week last week. I had a paying gig everyday except Thurs and Sun. I even started one today but was rained out. This week I can only work on Tues. Wed. we are leaving for Indiana. Not a pleasure trip by any stretch of the imagination. My phone rings Sun. night, the screen showed me it was my good friend calling me. On the other end was a womans voice. My blood turned cold because I knew something bad happened. It was his mom letting me know my buddy had passed away. I was in utter shock. I feel guilty for not being a better friend. I should have called more often. I could have visited. Gilley was an awesome guy and I hate knowing I will never get to talk to him again. We served in Iraq together. He was always there for me, even when guys in my platoon were not. He pushed me to get to the gym. He helped me lose 45 pounds in 2005. He would have stepped in front of a bullet that was meant for any of us. He is going to be missed. I will forever be touched by the generousity of Corey Gilley.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Today was very productive. I had another yard that needed to be cut. This one the client wanted the lawn taken care of with a mower with a bagger attachment. That meant I had to use the push mower. I was in luck, the mower is self propelled, and the lawn was only .4 acres. I worked up a huge sweat while doing it. To give you a visual, the sweat eventually started dripping off the brim of my hat. The lawn looks fantastic when I was through. I left the professional looking lines and every thing. Something I do not do out at the Shepherd Ranch. I mow my lawn using the rabbit method. If something catches my eye, I take off that way. I am all over the place. I got some work done and then hung out with the FAM. Good day today. Tonight I have struggled though. My left shoulder is killing me. I have some fluid built up around my shoulder socket and a tendon impigment that gives me dull pain pretty much all the time, but this pain is kicking it into high gear tonight. Hopefully it goes away soon. I have a busy week ahead of me.

SHEP

Friday, May 28, 2010

It feels like it has been a month since I have posted last.

I have been busy busy busy. This week I have done several odd jobs to make some money since the job out look is kinda grim. I am doing some lawn care/lawn clean up with a friend of mine from school. We have been busy. I have a yard to take care of tomorrow if this rain will hold off. I am searching Craig's List for any potential lead. I am asking friends. I am going to make some fliers and post them around town and see what kind of response I can get.

I have not been able to reduce my carbs much this week. I have been lazy and have not been preparing and planning ahead. I need to kick this lazy shadow that has been following me for the past few weeks. On a positive note, my water in take is up.

No idea what tomorrow holds, but it will be good.

SHEP

Monday, May 24, 2010

Today was a good physical pounding on the body. I helped a friend do a landscaping job for about 5 hours this morning. Lots of hard work. We weeded a flower bed and replaced the million weeds with several loads of mulch. After that, more mulch. And more mulch.

I then went this evening and played basketball. I probably played for an hour and a half straight. I really got in a good work out. I was drenched by the time I left.

Still looking for work. Keep praying I get the last position I interviewed for. We are trying to form a basketball league around Oconee, SC as well. If you have a gym or know someone who could let us use their gym, we would be estatic.

WORE OUT and headed to la la land.

SHEP

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Foothills 5K was a big success today. The race raised just over ten thousand dollars for the Foothills Pregnancy Center. I am very glad the center will now have an ultrasound machine. This machine will be used to show pregnant women seeking an abortion their unborn baby. 90% of the time once the mother sees the unborn baby they choose life for they baby. I am pumped up about the success of the race.

As far as my running is concerned, I finished. I had a very reachable goal of finishing the race. The lack of training kept me from making any other goals for this race. I did not want to have a certain time goal because I had no idea how well I would have done. I did plan on starting off much stronger than I normally do hoping to improve my time. No such luck. I finished. I ran a 32:16 or so. Overall I am happy, but vow to train harder so I can yet faster.

SHEP

Friday, May 21, 2010

Trevor and I went swimming today. I swam 150 meters. WOW! Swimming is tough. I do not know how people swim laps. I enjoyed it, but cannot do too many laps right now. I hope to change that though. When I eventually get a job I am going to get us a family membership at the gym. I am looking forward to tomorrows race. It is for a great cause. I am hoping to do well. I am going to start toward the front and really push myself. I would love to place in the top 3 in my age group. Overall I am just hoping to run well and enjoy myself.
SHEP
Today has been a pretty good day. I took Trevor to his graduation practice. While he was practicing with his friends I hit up the golden arches for some breakfast burritos. It is hard to not get the standard two steak and cheese biscuits. I am doing well with it for the most part.

I have been snacking and eating later in the evening than I have been in the most recent months of my journey. I really think I am eating later in the evening because I am sleeping in and skipping breakfast. By the time the evening rolls around I am hungry and end up eating more than I intended to.

I met with the dietitian today. He was concerned that my uric acid count was high from the last time I had my blood work done. He told me I needed to be drinking more milk. Seriously? Dude, do you not know milk is gross unless it consists of ice cream or cheese. He also suggested that I switch to a LOW CARB diet. The carb heavy foods turn into insulin and cause you to be hungry again quicker than if you had protein and veggies. I am going to do my best to limit the amount of carbs and sugars I consume, especially after lunch.

I went to play basketball tonight. I had a great time. Not only did I get to hang out with some great people but I got to work out. Awesome cardio night tonight. I am getting better each week. I am looking forward to our season this winter. I am in the process of tracking down a gym that we can use to start a summer league. I am hoping to get this league rolling soon.

I am looking forward to the 5K on Saturday. I am going to try and push myself to see if I cannot break the 30 minute mark this time. Hope to see you there.

Glad I got some exercise in today.

SHEP

Thursday, May 20, 2010

This week I have been a lazy bum. I have not really done any kind of real exercise. After basketball on Monday I did some squats (no weights) while laying around watching TV. I am not exactly happy with myself right now. Last night I grabbed a box of Cheezits and snacked while watching TV. I have gotten out of this habit, but have recently started doing it again. I have no one to blame but myself. I feel defeated. It would be easy to not log back in to Blogger, but I am not going to give up. I think what is messing me up, is my schedule. I stay up late and sleep in. I skip breakfast and get hungry later in the evening. I need to start getting up and have breakfast, as well as go to bed at a decent time if I cannot demonstrate some will power over this late night snacking. This afternoon I am heading to see the dietitian. Tonight is basketball night. Hopefully there will be enough players show up to keep a steady game going.

Slacker of the week,

SHEP

Monday, May 17, 2010

I played basketball tonight. We started out playing 4 on 4. BORING. Half court basketball sucks. We eventually played ONE stinking game of full court basketball. I got in a little cardio but it was not exactly what I would say an adequate work out. I guess I need to get up tomorrow morning and go for a little run on the treadmill or something. I am looking forward to the Foothills 5K this Saturday. I hope the course is nice and flat this time.

SHEP

Saturday, May 15, 2010

I am feeling like a big stupid jerk. I was watching TV thinking about the stupid Strawberry Cake in the fridge. I could not shake the thought. I broke and had a piece. About 45 minutes later, like a big stupid idiot, I went back and finished off the cake. I am pissed off about it. I am mad at myself. I do not have any idea why I would go ahead and do something so stupid and counterproductive to my weight loss journey. I weighed myself this morning and had dropped down to 230 pounds. Where will I be after the stupid gosh darn cake. I am going to have to get back on track. What am I going to do to make sure I do not something like this again? First step, Shep, do not buy stupid cake. I guess it really is not the cakes fault, probably could stop calling the cake names. I am so frustrated with myself. I must make sure I do not do this again.

Frustrated to no end right now.

SHEP

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Our basketball games tonight were very intense. We only had ten people show up to play. We played at least 6 full court games, each game at least 20 minutes each. It was a very good workout. I normally leave with my shirts soaked, but tonight even my jockeys were soaked. I had a great time. To top it all off, the group of people I play with are awesome. They are a great group of Christian guys and girls having fun. Could it be any better? I guess if we were getting paychecks at the end of the night it could. I would venture to guess I sweated about about a gallon of sweat tonight. It was a good night. I shot the ball okay, and played defense well. Each week I am getting better and better. I am looking forward to www.foothills.cc basketball in January. Coaches, listen up, if you draft me you are getting a steal. If you want to improve your chances of having a player foul out, seriously, you need to draft me.

Tired and sore, but loving this active lifestyle.

SHEP
There is so much to do around the house. I need to do a bunch of cleaning on the inside as well as the outside. I feel defeated before the day even gets started. I am about ready to grab some of my eco-friendly garbage bags and start filling them up with stuff to donate to the thrift store. I have not done anything physical since Monday. By the time my wife gets home and dinner is done with I am too tired to go running. I need to go pay a few bills and go eat lunch with my girl at school. By the time this is all said and done it will be noon. I have more laundry piled up than Georgia has redneck Bulldog fans. College football is getting closer. There is so much to do around the house, but I have to realize a clean house is not going to get me to my goal weight. Alright I feel better, time to get this stuff done and out the door so I can get home and get some more work done. Basketball tonight.

Task burdened, but always smiling,
SHEP

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Slow Moving

I have not been posting much these past few days. I have been busy busy working on my yard. Hoping to get it squared away soon. I played basketball Mon. night. Nothing stellar at all. My defense is getting better by the week. My shooting was poor. Some skinny kid was whining about playing full court because we only had enough to run 4 on 4. So I was not running nearly as much as I wanted to. I seriously did not break a sweat the first two games. Oh well.

I need a kick in the pants. I have not been exercising nearly enough since school has gotten out. I have been relying on basketball way too much. I need to get some more exercise in somewhere. I have to get my butt in gear.

Looking forward to what tomorrow holds.

SHEP

Sunday, May 9, 2010

GRADUATION




Frustrated

I have checked the official results page and still have not seen my time. I emailed the race director and he said I finished 34:55 with bib number 922. BUT bib number 496 who finished at 34:41 finished at least 15 people behind me. I am frustrated with the way this race was set up and timed. From start line to finish line I say I finished at 31:50. I do not believe I will run in this race again next year.

Big Weekend

This has been a big weekend for us. I know I talk a lot about weight loss, basketball and running. I want to take a quick second and talk about my wife. Brandi is such an awesome woman. She loves me unconditionally. I am not an easy guy to live with. Brandi deals with my crazy antics day in and day out. Brandi is a great mother to our children. and an incredible teacher. I am a lucky man to have such a great woman as my wife and best friend. Brandi surprised me with a cake for my graduation lunch. Not only did she surprise me with an awesome cake but she arranged for her sister to keep the kids overnight. We went to Greenville and stayed in a very nice hotel. We had an excellent dinner at Ruth's Chris. Not exactly the kind of place we can afford to go to on a monthly or quarterly basis, but it was very nice. Thank you Brandi for such a wonderful weekend.

Friday night was the Swamp Rabbit 5K. I still have no idea what my official time was. I have checked the official results web page a few times and have not been able to find my name. I am looking at the finish line pictures and I will figure out my time. I have emailed the people who did the timing of the event as well to see if they can locate my official time as well.

The run was on a difficult course. The first mile was nice and flat, after that though, the hills started kicking some butt. They made an announcement before the race started for all the walkers to move to the back of the formation. THEY DID NOT LISTEN. I passed so many people who started out walking. I moved to toward the back of the formation with the 10+ minute milers. To keep myself from getting behind all the walkers in future races I will just start a little closer to the front.

Riley and Ryann completed their first 5K. Trevor was running the 5K but some how got himself lost. He was supposed to be walking/running with my uncle. My uncle stopped for water and Trevor kept going. Trev said some girls stopped him and asked him if he was lost. Trev told them he was lost, so they called the police and had Trev hang out with them. We finally found him. He was as cool as a cucumber. He told the police officer that we had parked at the baseball field, so they waited there until we tracked him down. I was running all over the place looking for him. I stopped a police officer and asked her if she knew if Trev was with one of their officers. They did tell me he was at the car waiting on us.What a way for Trev to end his last day as a 4 year old.

Graduating was a great thing, but the ceremony was boring. No idea why the university had to talk about their accomplishments and why they are such an awesome university. Really? Oh well. I am done. No more school for now. I am so glad to be done. I never thought I would get to the day I completed my degree. The old Shep would quit something any time it started to getting difficult. I am so glad I am making some big time changes in my life.

I will have some pictures up later on.

SHEP

Friday, May 7, 2010

Swamp Rabbit 5K

Just a quick post about tonights run. I am beat. This run was pretty much flat up to mile number 1. The next 2.1 miles were up hill. I was hoping to beat my time from the last race, but I dont think I did. Official times have not been posted. I did come in under 35 minutes. I am not happy with my time. Only thing I can do to fix that is to train and train more. Basketball is fun and great exercise but it is not helping me with my distance running. I made it through the run, much better than I could have done last year.

Slowly getting to where I need to be.
SHEP

Twisted Ankle

Today has been a fairly productive day. Stephen came and fixed my lawn mower. I can now ride around and cut the grass. I still have not finished cutting the grass. My ADD distracted me and I started on a different task.

I started ripping up part of the drive way. I have become fed up with the water running down the driveway and into the garage every time it rains. I ripped up a 6 foot section of asphalt and started digging a hole so I can install a drain. When I get that completed I am going to plant some nice flowers and maybe even a few tomato and pepper plants.

I went and played basketball tonight. It was a lot of fun and great exercise. My shot was way off tonight. I went 5 for way too many. My defense was looking good though. I got a great cardio work out tonight. By January rolls around my game should be much improved. Looking forward to the basketball league at http://www.foothills.cc/.

My third 5K this year is coming up tomorrow night. I am slightly more nervous now after playing basketball. I twisted my ankle playing strong defense against a ball hog. I have no idea how my ankle got hurt either. I am icing it right now, so hopefully I will be at 100% for the run tomorrow.

Graduation practice is tomorrow morning. I am not happy about having to drive an hour to campus to practice lining up and practicing to sit down in my spot. Put my name on a seat. I know my name and I will walk up there and give you a high five, slap you on the butt and get my degree.

Fired up about tomorrow's run and Saturday.

SHEP

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Today was a semi-productive day. I got a good bit of the yard/lawn cut/mowed. I am from South Carolina and I refer to it as a yard and I say cut. Anyway. We have 2.2 acres of land. About 1.75 acres I try to keep cut. My stupid riding mower is always on the outs. I have a push mower that works wonderfully. I can leave it sitting in the rain for months and it will still start up with little effort. The belt that turns the wheels on the front of the mower broke a while back. I am not very mechanically inclined so it has not been replaced. I pushed this mower around the yard for what seemed like FOREVER today. I started at about 11 this morning and finally knocked off around 1:30. A friend of mine is going to come and give me a hand tomorrow with the riding mower. Hopefully I will get the grass cut before Friday.

Friday is the 3rd 5K this year. We got an email from the race director detailing where, when and that sort of thing. There are about THREE THOUSAND people signed up for this race. I am very worried. I have never run in a race this large. Where will I finish comparatively to 3,000 people?

Just being active is a great accomplishment, but I do not just want to compete. I want to do well and I would love to finish top 3 in my age group. I cannot wait to run regardless of the number of people registered to run. I will have pictures up as soon as I can. This is going to be a busy busy weekend, SO I am not making any promises as to when though.

Run on Friday, graduation on Saturday, and Mother's day on Sunday. I hope you have something awesome planned for this weekend.

SHEP
I was told there would be a group of guys playing basketball tonight. No such luck. Kinda disappointing to not play tonight, but it was great to sit on the couch with my wife and just hang out.

Tomorrow I am going to have to get some form of running accomplished. If I plan on getting down to a sub 30 minute 5K race I have to start working on some distance/endurance training. The sprinting during basketball is great, but I do not think it is enough to get me where I need to be. I hate running on the treadmill and I get bored running around a track. I have to figure something out.

My scale seems to be stuck at 236 pounds. I have to make some type of accommodation in my diet to make up for the plateau. My goal is to be down to 227 pounds by June 1. I know the scale is not broken, I know it is my fault I am stuck here. I am not doing as much as I could be doing to help get me to where I need to be.

If the weather will hold out for me, there will be a little yard work going on at my house tomorrow. Keep Saturday in your prayers for me. If it rains, my graduation will be moved indoors. If it goes indoors I will be given 5 tickets. Considering I have a wife and three children, what on Earth am I supposed to do with one ticket? Who do I invite? How do you decide who gets shafted?

Still looking for a job. I am open to being hired as a motivational speaker. If you need someone to come and speak to a group of people we can work something out.

Sitting outside enjoying the coolness.

SHEP

Monday, May 3, 2010

Hot Humid Gym

Hot and Humid does not even begin to describe the gym tonight. We played for about 2 hours tonight. By the time I was done my shirt was completely soaked. My legs feel great. I still have the hip pain though. I had an X-Ray today and the tech said everything looked OK. I will eventually get to a physical therapist about it.

I am looking forward to this Friday night. We are all running in the Swamp Rabbit 5K. This will be our kids' first 5K. I hope to get my time down to 29 minutes if at all possible.

I am going to start training for a half marathon soon. My wife and I want to run in one in October or November. I hope to just be able to finish it when we enter one.

Hoping for a great week.

SHEP

kick back sunday

i pretty much kicked back and relaxed today. we hit up the most awesome church this am. www.foothills.cc then busted into our local firehouse subs for kids eat free day. hung out and ate with tom. headed back to the house in westminster, aka the middle of no where. i took a nap. went to walmart for some staples for the week. put up the cold stuff and hit the world wide wacked out web. i googled some half marathon training programs. i googled some more mud runs. sept 25 columbia sc is the next mud run. thinking about building a training wall in the yard to help me get ready for the next mud run. got to build up my upper body strength. looking forward to my legs not being so sore. i bet you guys wish i would not blog from my phone???? i will eventually fix this post to make it more readable.

until then....

SHEP

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Mud Run

My wife, two friends from church, and I all ran/jogged/walked/crawled today in the St. Francis Mud Run. I had such a great time. If you are not familiar with a mud run let me break it down for you. 4 mile run with obstacles sprinkled in. Sprinkled = 35 different obstacles. I completed Army Basic Combat Training in 2004. Basic training was a jog in the park on a lazy Sunday afternoon compared to this one run. I have never climbed over (lots of help needed) crawled under, or waded through so much mud in my life. It was a very difficult physical challenge, but it was so much fun. I would do it again in a heart beat.

After the run was finally over, it took me about 10 to 15 minutes to finally catch my breath. I was exhausted. Due to some weak upper body strength I did not finish a few of the obstacles. I regret not at least trying to do them. It would have been easier to know I did not do well on the obstacles then to not even try them at all. My shoulders give me a lot of difficulty, but I could have at least gave it a try. I am going to post a few pictures here, but will post all of the pictures on the Fat Funny Guy page on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fat-Funny-Guy/102249846485790?ref=ts).

If you want to challenge yourself and have a great time doing it, I encourage you to get out and do a mud run. It was so much fun.

So tired.

SHEP

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